- Define your expectations around AI use. Offer students clear guidelines about how they should and should not use AI if they want to be successful and learn in your course.
- Reframe generative AI as a learning tool. How might you help students think about ways they can use AI as a supportive tool for more practice and deeper thinking rather than a shortcut?
- Acknowledge students' resistance to learning with AI. Is there value for critical engagement with these tools? How might this experience lead to more informed learning in the future? Consider how you might also leave space for students’ concerns and critical stances on AI.
- Help students understand the value of the learning process. There may be assignments that students perceive as “busy work” but are central to developing their intuition in your field. How can you help students value this work when they are tempted to go to AI to shortcut the process of learning?
- Offer students opportunities to reflect on their use. Are there avenues for students to share how they are using AI, and whether they found AI to be helpful or unhelpful for learning? How might you highlight strategies that will enable students to learn, and how will you help students understand when their strategies get in the way of their growth and learning?
- Remind students that AI does not take the place of the instructor. Emphasize when and why students should contact you, TAs, tutors, or other academic and social supports at Penn so that students do not rely on AI when human guidance might be a better solution.
19Aug’26
There are ways generative AI can support student learning, but students can also use the tools to shortcut necessary practice, thinking, and the development of their own judgement. Instructors may want to give students guidance about how they can use AI to enhance their learning. Instructors may also want to be clear about when, in the process of problem-solving or doing other work, using AI will prevent students from necessary learning. Appropriate use will differ from course to course and sometimes even within different assignments in one course.
This page offers instructors teaching strategies to help students use AI in purposeful ways to support learning.
Considerations
Approaches
If you are concerned that students are not clear on how to use AI appropriately for learning, consider using class time to help students explore how to use AI in productive ways. You might have students:
- Draft a “do” and “don’t” list for using AI to learn in a particular class. Then, in a class-wide discussion, develop a “class compact” on AI use.
- Solve problems in groups where AI is only consulted to verify and critique answers after students work together to solve it for a period of time.
- Use AI to develop alternative explanations or visualizations for class concepts and analyze them for accuracy in small groups.
- Engage in role playing scenarios where the AI is prompted to act as sample patients, clients, counterpoint in a key debate, or a novice to be taught.
- Prompt AI to define group roles, responsibilities, and intermediate deadlines related to a group project for class.
Students may need help understanding how homework problems, readings, and shorter writing tasks will prepare them for your exams and assignments, and that using AI as a replacement for that work will short-change their ability to do the level of thinking you expect.
Therefore, it will be important to consider how you want students to use AI outside of class. Communicating with students about how and when to use AI will help you set guardrails so that students can develop their independent judgement and problem-solving skills.
Here are some ways students could explore how AI might help them study or prepare more effectively:
- Have students prompt AI to provide additional practice problems so that students can use their existing knowledge when applied to novel situations.
- When students are stuck on a difficult problem, ask them to prompt AI to provide a hint or a tip that does not give away the answer. Emphasize that students should try the problem on their own first. Provide students with guidelines on how long they should work on the problem before asking for a hint, and ask students to identify the difference between a useful hint and an obvious giveaway.
- Have students prompt AI to engage with them as a Socratic-style tutor that asks the student questions in response to the student’s explanations. This approach can be used to review problem solving and concepts, as well as in in preparation for a writing assignment.
- Ask students to engage in a dialogue with AI about a certain reading or passage, so they can confirm their understanding of difficult material.
- Have students use AI to create a schedule for studying that can organize their time and support knowledge retention.
Additionally, Weingarten offers recommendations and guiding questions that students can use to help them develop their own judgement around effective ways to study with AI.
CETLI Can Help
CETLI staff are available to discuss ideas or concerns related to generative AI and your teaching, and we can work with your program or department to facilitate conversations about this technology. Contact CETLI to learn more.